March 30, 2010
Tues News: 3/30 (Google in Hot Water Edition)

Google may be the king of the Internet but the King of Town is still the king of town... and eating things that may not be food.

Google has been getting it’s way and throwing its weight around for a while now. If you get in Google’s way, they are likely to buy you out or do what you do better than you do it. If you’re going along for the ride with them, you’d better be sure not to make them angry. They’ve very quickly established themselves as the most important and salient company of the last decade.

Well, as it turns out, the 10s won’t be as easy as the 00s, by all measures, for Google. This year is already starting out with some serious contention and competition for Google. In this edition of the Tues News, we’ll check out some of the troubles that are likely to plague Google in the near future and possibly beyond that. Let’s get going!

Apple’s Entry into the Ad Market: Google is the undisputed king of search marketing for some time now. Even though AdWords wasn’t first, it proved to be the best, most user-friendly and most worthwhile method to post ads on SERPs. Google has never looked back and even purchased AdMob to make sure that their footing in the mobile search market is secure. Well, it seems that Apple has plans to throw its hat in the ring as well and iAd could be devastatingly powerful given the dominance of the iPhone and upcoming release of the iPad. It’s true, there are now contenders running Google’s Android OS, but the iPhone remains king and the iPad could redefine the way some people interact with online content. If Apple does iAd right, it could make for a formidable foe for Google, especially in the mobile search marketing arena. [MediaPost]

Rosetta Stone’s Trademark Lawsuit: The current, prevailing wisdom is that you can use competitor search terms in your keyword list as long as you don’t purport your company to be your competition; i.e., Coke can advertise on the word “Pepsi” as long as they don’t make themselves out to be Pepsi. This, hypothetically, allows users to have more options in the SERPs without leading to confusion that could be caused by a bunch of similar looking ads. Well, Rosetta Stone is suing Google anyway, claiming that competitors bidding on the their brand name was leading to confused users and lost revenue for the language learning giant. Personally, I think that Google does a good job protecting brands online and I would wager that Rosetta Stone probably gets much, much more positives using AdWords than they do negatives. Still, in this crazy, litigious society, no case is a bad case, especially if you can back it up with money and Rosetta Stone certainly has that. We’ll see how this turns out but you can bet that this will be a thorn in Google side for the duration of the proceedings. [Bloomberg]

Viacom’s Copyright Infringement Lawsuit: I hope Google keeps a full pot of coffee in their legal team’s bullpen because this is going to be a busy year. As everyone and their mother knows, Google owns YouTube: it’s one of the biggest and highest profile acquisitions that they’ve made. Well, since the acquisition, Google has been fighting off lawsuits about YouTube displaying copyrighted material. As the barrier to upload is so small–which is one of the reasons that YouTube is so darn popular–it’s very difficult for Google to make sure that all the video content on the site is fair use. Viacom, it seems, doesn’t care and they are now in legal proceedings against YouTube for having displayed Viacom’s content for years. Google claims that YouTube has been above board according to the law but Viacom has some pretty convincing email evidence that YouTube dragged its feet when it came to removing content. As with any lawsuit including a property as big as YouTube, this one could have serious implications on intellectual property law. Stay tuned! [Slate]

It’s not always easy to be #1. You have to constantly look out for #1 and people are always gunning for #1. Still, in the words of Mel Brooks, “It’s good to be the king,” but it takes a lot of work to stay king. Currently, Google has the crown but there are a lot of obstacles on the horizon that might make keeping it a tall task. The Tues News will be there to chronicle it for you, every step of the way!

Thanks for stopping by. Read up on and keep up with the online world; keep reading Tues News! Catch ya later!

I think Rosetta Stone is on their own…Google covered their @#$ in their trademark policy saying “As a provider of space for advertisements, Google is not in a position to arbitrate trademark disputes between advertisers and trademark owners, nor is Google responsible for doing so. As stated in our Terms and Conditions, advertisers are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. Accordingly, Google encourages trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertiser, particularly because the advertiser may have similar ads on other sites. However, as a courtesy to trademark owners, Google is willing to perform a limited investigation of reasonable complaints.” WHAT UP!

Wow Gina, well put. Should be interesting how that plays out. Also interested to see if and how Apple enters the ad game, which with the acquisition of Quattro Mobile seems to be inevitable. And didn’t Viacom anonymously put up some of their trademarked material on YouTube and then tell Google to take it down and then realized it was theirs and told them “never mind”.